The other Sunshine Week bills

It’s still Sunshine Week here at the Capitol, and yesterday legislators passed several bills to mark the occasion.

But there are others out there, most interestingly dealing with the idea of pro-active disclosure. There’s information that we all know is covered under the Freedom of Information Law (some info on that here), so rather than making people request it formally, state agencies and/or authorities should just put it on the Interweb for the world to download and see.

Assemblyman Micah Kellner, D-Manhattan, sponsors one that would require proactive disclosure through a centralized database. It would also ask them to create “apps” to help use the data. Alas, it wasn’t acted on in the chamber yesterday.

“This is about pulling government data out of the dusty filing cabinets and putting it to work to improve our daily lives,” he said in a statement. “The uses of this information are limited only by our imaginations. A developer could create an application to show you how your community stacks up in crime and cancer rates, to help you plan a safer route home, or to send you news feeds about projects that affect your neighborhood. The NYC Big Apps competition has begun to show how open data can unleash civic entrepreneurialism. Putting New York State’s records online will greatly multiply the benefits—and the development of these applications will generate new jobs for New Yorkers.”